Tommy Emmanuel’s ‘Accomplice One’ belies the duet album banality

The concept of the duets album has long been a tired ritual. Unless the artist spearheading the project has a vision for presenting a handful of unrelated collaborations distinct enough to form a common stylistic link with the guests invited to the party, the resulting work becomes a marketing gimmick. It usually dissolves into a celebrity summit designed to jump-start a career that’s in commercial decline rather than be a purposeful new artistic statement.

Tommy Emmanuel’s “Accomplice One” sidesteps such a formulaic practice on multiple levels. First, the native Australian guitarist has long embraced the finer practices of Nashville picking: musicianship with country accessibility and jazz-like daring, a combo sound pioneered by Emmanuel mentor Chet Atkins. On “Accomplice One,” he capitalizes on that legacy by enlisting a team of like-minded pickers who are scholarly in their technical command but not such stuffed shirts that they squelch the country-esque candor at the heart of their playing.

Above all, though, is simple attitude. Fueling Emmanuel’s schooled precision is a sunny disposition that makes his picking positively glow. It abounds throughout “Accomplice One,” igniting the natural country muse in the compositions (some are standards; others are curious originals by Emmanuel and his guests) and brightening the general musical demeanor of the playing.

Some of the material beams with a largely expected country clarity, including the ’70s nugget “Song and Dance Man,” which benefits from the mandolin and vocal jubilation of Ricky Skaggs to approximate the vintage country crossover sound of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Ditto for “You Don’t Want to Get You One of Those,” a tune penned by and featuring Mark Knopfler, a Brit with a longstanding love of classic Nashville picking. The same could even be said for when Emmanuel steps outside of the country confines, as on “Djangology.” To co-pilot the treacherous pace of the Django Reinhardt/Stephane Grappelli gem and complete its successful transition into a warp-speed country shuffle, Emmanuel enlists one of the finest Reinhardt disciples on the planet, guitarist Frank Vignola. The results are rhythmically, technically and joyously stunning.

There are also delightful stylistic shockers here, including the radical makeover of the breakthrough 1983 Madonna hit “Borderline” into a gentle country proclamation, with Amanda Shires singing, with eerie clarity, like a young Dolly Parton. Then get a load of what Emmanuel and dobro colossus Jerry Douglas do to the Jimi Hendrix staple “Purple Haze,” transforming it from a foot-stomping blast of electric psychedelia into a wiry, rustic showdown that allows both unplugged players to go wild.

Top all of that with mandolinist/genre-hopper David Grisman and Nashville guitar ace Bryan Sutton on two stylistic joyrides (Duke Ellington’s “C Jam Blues” and Bill Monroe’s “Watson Blues”), and you experience just how on the mark, in both artistic vision and execution, “Accomplice One” really is.

Finally, a duets record in which more is truly the merrier.

This story was originally published January 30, 2018 at 5:55 PM with the headline "Tommy Emmanuel’s ‘Accomplice One’ belies the duet album banality."